KYIV. Sept 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Union has proposed the five-year program to support the Energy Efficiency Fund, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Services of Ukraine Hennadiy Zubko said at a meeting with European Commission Vice President in Charge of the Energy Union Maros Sefcovic.
“This assistance will be permanently expanded. This is not non-recurring assistance, but long support both technical and financial by the European Union [EU],” the press service of the deputy prime minister reported on Friday.
Earlier the EU confirmed its readiness to provide EUR 100 million to the Energy Efficiency Fund. This will allow the fund to start financing concrete energy efficiency projects.

KYIV. Sept 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Total value of assets of private pension funds in Ukraine as of June 30, 2017 reached UAH 2.249 billion. This is 12.4% more than in H1 2016, according to a posting on the website of the national commission for financial service markets regulation.
The regulator said that total revenue from investment by pension funds grew by 3.8%, to UAH 1.227 billion. Profit from investing assets amounted to UAH 956 million (a 37% rise year-over-year).
The sum of retirement investments grew by 5.3%, to UAH 1.946 billion. Companies invested UAH 1.835 billion (a rise of 4%). Investments from individuals came to UAH 110 million (a rise of 32.5%).
Expenses settled using pension assets grew by 23.4%, reaching UAH 270.8 million for the period of existence of pension funds.
The regulator said that the number of pension contracts signed by administrators of the private pension funds grew by 9.6%, to 66,500 thanks to growth of the number of contracts signed with individuals to 59,000.
The total number of participants of private pension funds was 838,000, including 83,200 (9.9%) receiving pensions.
Pension payments grew by 18.1%, to UAH 682.5 million.

KYIV. Sept 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The most popular specialties among Ukrainian entrants in 2017 were Philology, Law and Management, and the least popular were Theology (without taking into account theological higher educational institutions) and Hydropower, the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry reported on September 14.
According to the report, the most popular specialties among applicants for the bachelor’s degree (master’s degree in medicine, pharmaceutics, and veterinary science) were Philology, Law and Management. A total of 85,000, 74,000 and 59,400 applications respectively were submitted for these specialties.
The top specialties also included Medicine, Computer Science, Tourism, Secondary Education, Psychology and Economics (from 40,000 to 46,000 applications).
Software Engineering (33,000 applications) closed the Top 10.
“We see that traditionally such specialties as Law, Management, Tourism and Economics remain one of the most popular among entrants even though they are not in demand on the labor market. At the same time, economics requires such specialties as Computer Science and Software Engineering,” the ministry’s press service quoted Director of the Higher Education Department at the Education and Science Ministry Oleh Sharov as saying.
The least popular specialties in 2017 among Ukrainian applicants were Theology (185 applications, not taking into account theological universities) and Hydropower (193).
“Unfortunately, the least popular specialties also include those that are now in demand on the labor market, for example, the specialty ‘Nuclear Power Engineering,'” Sharov said.

KYIV. Sept 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine has included Lannivsky Industrial Park (the village of Lanna, Poltava region), which became the 27th park in the list, in the register of industrial parks.
According to a report on the ministry’s website, the park is included in the register by ministry resolution No. 1318 of September 12, 2017.
The initiator of the park creation was private enterprise Lannivsky Sugar Plant.
The park area of 30.7135 hectares consists of land plots owned by the initiator of the park. The declared term of functioning is 49 years.
The purpose of the park is activities related to the processing of agricultural raw materials, food industry, agricultural machinery building and maintenance, as well as logistics and storage. About 600 new jobs are expected to be created.
According to the ministry, the managing company of the park is Lannivska MTS LLC, a participant is private enterprise Lanna-Agro.
All the companies are part of Lannivska agro-industrial group, which, according to information on its website, specializes in growing grain, oilseeds and industrial crops, dairy and cattle farming, gardening, sugar production and sales.

KYIV. Sept 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Investments in the development of the livestock and crop growing sector of Astarta agricultural holding could reach $80 million by the end of 2020, Zeljko Erceg, the operations director of the holding, has told journalists in Poltava region.
“About $80 million for the next three years is our plan for investment in the agricultural industry: it’s livestock and crop production. There are different projects from irrigation, changes in technology in crop production, construction of elevators and new livestock complexes and our plans that are now at the stage of intensive studying: this is milk processing,” he said.
Astarta in 2016 began a comprehensive reorganization of the management system at dairy farms to improve the efficiency and profitability of production. At present it has been implemented at Dovzhenko agricultural firm (Poltava region), where 50% of all milk is produced and more than 40% of cattle of the agroholding is held. In addition to dairy farms, the farm operates a heifer complex with 5,200 animals.
According to the expert, Dovzhenko farm has launched a center for preparation and distribution of feed for cattle (a feed center) in the village of Shyshaky (Poltava region). It is designed to provide feed for 10,000 animals. Its capacity is 300 tonnes of feed mix per day.

KYIV. Sept 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Former prime minister of Lithuania, the co-author of the “Marshal Plan” for Ukraine Andrius Kubilius has said that a donor conference to finance the project could be held in February or March 2018.
“Discussions in the European Parliament [of the “Marshal Plan” for Ukraine] will continue until late November. Then the Eastern Partnership Summit [is to take place]. By this time we are to make our homework… In February or March next year a first conference of donors who will take part in the “Marshal Plan” is planned,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.
First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv said at the briefing that on Thursday a meeting of the Ukrainian-Lithuanian commission for the project was held. Then ministries and agencies will analyze the key directions of promising development until 2020, discus them with the profile associations and by September 25, 2017 when the second meeting of the commission is to take place, the key five priorities are to be determined.
He said that it is planned to create an “investment pool” consisting of funds of European financial institutions that will be ready to support the initiative.
The Ukrainian-Lithuanian draft “Marshal Plan” for Ukraine was presented in European institutions and will be studied by the European Commission, Head of the Ukrainian Delegation to the EU Mykola Tochytsky said earlier.